Clint Eastwood can’t hide his absolute disdain for the media in cogent but flat biopic Richard Jewell, which tells the story of a low-rent security guard who stumbles across a bomb. Under the scrutiny of the FBI and media (45’s biggest domestic adversaries), Richard Jewell’s heroic act is twisted to look like the act of a deranged false flagger. The film boasts a few solid performances, especially from the always reliable Sam Rockwell and Paul Walter Hauser in the title role, but features a super problematic depiction of Trump-approved #FakeNews media sources, who are absolutely unscrupulous in their fact reporting and give precisely zero fucks as to the collateral damage of false reporting. Were this all in service of a sturdy biopic, it might be easier to overlook the full-breasted dog-whistling but Richard Jewell remains too hostage to predicability to rise above the troubling political undercurrents raging through Eastwood’s latest. (C)

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